


The Hound of Arkanis

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Monster Armitage Hux, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Snoke is a creepy bastard, did the research, minor cannibalism warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23435887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Humans colonized Arkanis thousands of years ago, more than enough time for Arkanis to make them her own.Armitage Hux's mother was Arkanan. So much potential...Some dense anatomical terminology ahead. Mind the medical warnings.
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 17
Kudos: 47





	The Hound of Arkanis

**Author's Note:**

> Medical warnings. Mad science warnings. Mad scientists are not nice people.
> 
> I am educated in the ways of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and human anatomy. I am not educated in the state of such sciences in the Star Wars universe, other than they rely on droids too danged much. Therefore I didn't go beyond anything I haven't done or seen myself during my academic experiences.

It’s said the suns never rose upon Arkanis.

Beneath the clouds, beneath the canopy of the forest, night reigned. The constant mists choked the light of the twin suns, shrouding the world in deep twilight. The omnipresent rains turned any open ground into thick bogs, swamped the undergrowth out from under the fungal lichen-trees, and rendered agriculture into a hopeless nightmare.

The first human colonists to Arkanis had left their ships and despaired. They cursed the uncaring misty sky, the oppressive rains soaking their skins, the sucking bogs that claimed the unwary, the predators that stalked those great forests.

Arkanis was not a world for humans.

And yet, humans were not ones to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Instead the humans adapted.

Humans always adapted to their new worlds. Alderaan bred humans who swam the oceans like seals, who held their breaths forever and learned to love the waves. Tatooine bred humans who could walk the desert sands barefoot, who could store water inside them as they trudged from oasis to oasis. But Arkanis…

Over thousands of years the colonists became Arkanans.

The Arkanis Regency ruled itself and its own little pocket of worlds. At first the Republic balked at the Regency’s sovereignty until they saw what had become of those humans too stubborn, too twisted to leave Arkanis when it had still been wise. After that the Regency was allowed its own autonomy. Even the Empire allowed the Regency to remain, collecting only a tithe of taxes and requesting the right to hide an Academy there.

Only once did the New Republic invade, only once did the New Republic see what had become of these people, did the galaxy at large realize just what a human body is capable of becoming. Just how fast evolution could take a human being and twist it into something… else.

The suns never rose on Arkanis. The Arkanans never needed it. 

* * *

Lieutenant Armitage Hux glared at his reflection in the fresher mirror.

He looked human enough but that didn’t mean anything. If he opened his mouth he would see the gaps where his father had ordered teeth removed. If he looked close he would see how wide the irises of his eyes really were, the whites pressed to the corners. Those eyes had a habit of shining dull green in the dark places where only he could see.

But there were more damning differences that left the others around him whispering behind his back. The dietary restrictions that left him unwilling to eat when the only foodstuffs available were those wretched grain-based ration bars. The growl under his breath he could never quite rid himself of. The hiss of a flattened tongue that had trouble forming the entirety of the Imperial alphabet. The uncomfortable habit he had of deferring to a superior by baring his throat unless he stopped himself.

It was no wonder the old Imperials kept their eyes on him. It had nothing to do with his father, Void take that man. 

But there was nothing for it. He was due to meet the Supreme Leader today. He’d never met the man, supposedly one of the Emperor’s secret apprentices and thus rightful heir to the Empire. 

He pulled his uniform straight and perfect. _More human than thou_ , he thought, and left the fresher to face the day.

He found his father waiting outside and held his breath to keep it from escaping in the snarl he so desperately felt in his throat.

“You’re late,” Brendol snapped.

Armitage said nothing, not trusting his voice. He could allow a sneer, close enough to a snarl.

“Come along, boy,” Brendol said. He snapped his hand on his thigh like he were calling a dog to heel.

Armitage allowed his father to lead. It meant he could bare his teeth and curse their loss. De-fanged like a rabid animal. He felt like one when forced to obey this man.

The command ship of the First Order was what it could be. Here in the Unknown Regions the infrastructure to create beautiful things was spotty. Instead the current command ship was an amalgam of freighter and pleasure barge and something that might have been the corpse of some space-faring organic creature. Old Imperial mouse droids scuttled about like their namesakes, chittering like rodents and keeping to the shadows as they ran about. The occasional R-unit swore in binary as it worked to repair systems cobbled together and never meant to last this long.

Supreme Leader Snoke kept a throne room in the center of the organic mass. The walls gleamed like the inner shell of a nautilus, the swirl of the center reaching to a spire above their heads. Red and coral and shining iridescence spun in beautiful patterns along the shell walls, scattering light into a gloom that left Brendol Hux blinking in disorientation. Armitage merely gazed at the scene before him, seeing it clear as any competently lit room.

Praetorian Guards stood to the Supreme leader’s right and left, their red armor blending chaotically with the shell walls. The Supreme Leader himself wore expansive robes of gold and green that shone like a beetle’s wings. He gestured. “Come closer, young Lieutenant,” Snoke called.

Armitage turned his shining green eyes on Brendol and hissed before stepping out of the man’s reach. He followed the hand gestures his Supreme Leader used, stopping only when Snoke’s hands indicated. This simple ability seemed to please Snoke immensely, at least it made him grin wide with crooked human teeth.

“Your father tried to keep this from me,” Snoke said, something like glee in his voice. “How dare he…”

“My Lord?” Armitage asked.

Snoke raised a hand and Armitage felt something physically grab him around the neck. It didn’t choke but it held him still. Armitage growled in warning, teeth bared until it dawned on him who exactly he was growling at. He stopped, mortified.

“Oh no, don’t stop,” Snoke said, delight in his voice. “Your mother was Arkanan. I’ve never seen one of your kind before. Let me look at you. Let me  **hear** your challenge…”

“Wha?” Armitage was unable to say much more as that physicality spread to his mouth, opening his jaw wide and pulling his lips back. He hissed, trying to shake and pull away, the blush of embarrassment spreading over his cheeks even as his pupils spread so wide his eyes nearly turned black.

Snoke counted Armitage’s teeth, sensing the thoughts of both Huxes. He had no use for Brendol’s hateful disgust. But Armitage, this was interesting. The younger Hux was embarrassed, both for his inhumanity and for the loss of so many glorious teeth. His canine and first premolar teeth had been removed, given the damage of the neighboring teeth Armitage had been awake and had fought. Good boy. He had carnassial molars, sharp, wide, perfect for ripping flesh and cracking bone. The incisor teeth looked almost human in their ordinariness, probably the result of Brendol’s ordinary genes. The jaw was strong, tense, but far too used to the flavorless ration pastes that Armitage was forced to call ‘food’. 

His eyes were beautiful. The wide iris nearly filled the entire eye with an emerald green. The pupil could blow to cover the whole iris as it did right now, leaving those glittering gem eyes to glow predator-pale in the wan light that reflected from within. And yet the idiot Brendol had insisted his son train as a sniper? Such reflections marked Armitage as incurably nearsighted, surely Brendol realized that. Or perhaps the training was nothing more than another punishing attempt to control the young bastard, to humiliate him with inadequacy.

Snoke sensed there could be more, much more, but that would be beneath the skin. Armitage’s incredible ability to subsist without food for days on end with no loss of concentration. His beautiful snarling voice that commanded fear, that brought out the prey instincts in soldiers and officers alike. A sense of smell strong enough to track a man through the maze of a ship’s corridors. Even those things that Brendol had inadvertently taught him, such as the weapons Armitage had hidden in his sleeves as though such things weren’t expressly forbidden so near the Supreme Leader.

Yes. Armitage would do well for Snoke’s purposes. But first, there were some mistakes that needed to be corrected.

“You poor mongrel, who de-fanged you?” Snoke asked, even though he knew the answer.

Armitage growled, the only thing he could do with his jaw held open, gagged upon the Force itself.

“Well?” Sonke demanded, his voice echoing in the curling nautilus shell. “Who mutilated him in this way?”

“Answer him, boy,” Brendol snapped, shouting blind to the twilight.

_ He did it, HE did it, Mother should have torn out his THROAT drank his BLOOD _

“I see,” Snoke purred. The thoughts leaking from Armitage’s mind were most heartening. “A father mutilates his own son. Why, I wonder? Shame? Jealousy? Is that it, was Brendol Hux jealous of his son’s feral beauty?”

Brendol Hux watched shadows in the darkness and twitched in contained fury.

Armitage Hux thrashed against the Force that held him still, snarling in challenge at the indignity.

Snoke stood from his throne and stepped forward, gesturing for his Praetorian Guard to fan out around the room. He dropped the younger Hux, wanting to see what happened.

Armitage found himself dropped, pulled off balance, fallen to his knees. He snarled, teeth bared as he--

As he realized he was about to lunge for the throat of the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Instead he crouched low, teeth bared as he wished he had all his teeth. He didn’t care in that moment if it robbed him of speech like his father taunted. He wanted them all back. Instead he felt skin against his face as Snoke reached down to stroke him like an animal.

“My beautiful hound,” Snoke said, the words falling like glorious praise. “My savage feral cur. This can’t stand. You are a gift, a most beautiful gift that your father unwisely sought to keep from me.”

Brendol’s hatred soured, turning to something like fear. Snoke could taste that fear, knew that what Brendol feared most was the others learning just how inhuman his son really was. As though Arkanis wasn’t a secret ally. As though Snoke didn’t covet the idea of such savagery at his fingertips. As though saving face was more important than saving one’s life.

Snoke shoved his fingers into Armitage’s mouth. He knew full well that if Armitage were to bite down he would lose those fingers. He projected that lack of caring to shock Armitage into accepting the intrusion and dropping his shoulders to bare his throat.

“So much like your mother,” Snoke purred. “A pity Brendol didn’t see fit to bring her to me as well. Yes, we can fix this.” He ran a thumb over the healed gums where canines once jutted. “The medical team will be instructed to replace the teeth so cruelly stolen from you. I’ll make sure they have the correct anatomical knowledge, no point in putting human teeth into such a monstrous maw. Then I believe training is in order. Simulations can be arranged. I have plans for you, my beautiful hound.”

Snoke pulled back and gestured for his Praetorian Guard to drag his new hound out of his throne room. Armitage didn’t thank him, not yet, as he was dragged away with wide eyes. He would understand in time.

Snoke also gestured for Brendol Hux to be brought forward. This unimaginative human would also be made to understand. 

Snoke had plans for the First Order and they would be best served if Armitage Hux learned to reject much of his human side. 

*****

Supreme Leader Snoke stood on the observation floor of the research lab, two of his Praetorian Guard standing with him. Two stood outside in the corridor. The last two stalked the ship enacting their Lord’s will.

Snoke’s will, at the moment, involved the pretty little slip of a hound currently strapped to a table in the middle of the brightly-lit lab. Drugs kept him semi-conscious, his mind disconnected from his body. He could think, he could feel, he could breathe, but he couldn’t move no matter how much he tried to resist. Droids waited to attend to the patient, standing still like statues.

The researcher wore tight latex gloves that encased her to the shoulders. A short-sleeved lab coat protected her from her patient. Opaque goggles containing droid lenses and a complex HUD hid her eyes from the harsh lights that illuminated the room.

Holograms covered the walls of the lab, anatomical studies both human and predatory. Recordings of previous indignities performed by half-scrapped medical droids rented from black market sources played in endless loops of a child begging for it all to stop. Imaging scans revealed human and nonhuman elements blended seamlessly in some body systems, poorly in others.

Dr. Katsuo examined the images around her and the all-too-aware form strapped to her table. This hybrid, this Lieutenant Armitage Hux, was to be Supreme Leader Snoke’s newest plaything. Surely that meant his quick advancement in the military structure, which required delicacy on her part. The father’s blundering attempts at humanizing Armitage could be repaired but Snoke walked a fine line here. The Imperial remnants that kept him in power would not easily accept a non-human into their upper echelons, not this time.

“Wouldn’t they?” Snoke asked. “They will do as they’re told.”

Dr. Katsuo stiffened then remembered. Force-users didn’t need thoughts to be spoken aloud, they could hear those thoughts directly. “He is no Grand Admiral Thrawn,” she warned.

“They will do as they’re told,” Snoke repeated in a tone that brokered no discussion. “That’s enough.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Katsuo said. She flicked between displays in her goggles, looking for what she needed. The First Order itself had little information on the intricacies of Arkanan physiology. Most of her data came from a single source, from Brendol Hux’s own private files. More were forthcoming as Commandant Hux’s data files were currently being explored and exploited by a trio of deviously sentient R-units long overdue for memory wipes. But there was no substitution for first-hand information. She glanced back at Snoke and phrased the question without words.

Snoke grinned and nodded. He closed his eyes and sent the mental order to those two of his Praetorian Guard who wandered. His will would be done.

Brendol Hux would submit to examination or he would be dragged here for it. Either way, Dr. Katsuo would know him down to his very last cell.

In the meantime, she paused the replay of a black-market surgery to focus on the data gleaned. The droid had ripped teeth out of Armitage’s mouth with what amounted to a pair of pliers, shredding the nerves. Those nerves could be regrown and the teeth cloned but a simple set of titanium implants would be easier on all involved.

Dr. Katuso brought out the dental speculum, spreading Armitage’s unresisting jaw as wide as it could go and pulling the lips back to reveal all of the teeth. “Four incisors on each jaw,” she said, counting the teeth so the Supreme Leader could see what she had to work with. “Humans have four, Arkanans have six. Records indicate he’s always had four. They’re the most human-looking of his teeth.

“The canines have been removed,” she continued, pointing to the large gaps of bare gums. “The first premolars were removed on the upper jaw. The lower jaw shows damage where the premolar on the right has been cracked, probably during removal of the canine. This damage has not been fixed. It causes the subject no pain, the nerve is already dead.”

She reached further back into Armtage’s mouth where the teeth did not flatten like human teeth. Rather they grew into broad, pointed, jagged sharp triangular protrusions of enamel. “The second and third premolars are intact. The carnassial molars are intact. The upper left shows an alimentary cusp, it appears to cause no trouble. The subject shows reduced capacity to crush bones versus a typical Arkanan.”

“Crush bones, you say,” Snoke purred.

“Reduced capacity, I said,” Katsuo said. “This reduced capacity is reinforced by the near-human musculature of his mandibular expanse. His neck and face are ill-suited for handling the strain. I doubt you’re going to have him crushing femurs for your amusement, Supreme Leader.”

Snoke hummed in discontent.

“Rather with the reintroduction of his canines and premolars, I expect he will be highly suited for ripping out throats,” Katsuo said quickly. Snoke’s discontentment was not something she wanted to experience firsthand. “The large human-like incisors will likely aid him in shearing flesh from bone.”

Snoke could sense Armitage’s disconcerted protests from here. 

_ The stories of cannibalism from Arkanis are all myths, they have to be, otherwise Father lied… but then Father always lies, is this any different? Could I really eat another human? If I started could I stop myself? So hungry… It’s so hard when the rations run out and there’s nothing left to eat but the tasteless bread-grain ration bars. Feel so sick when I eat them. Nauseous. Mind foggy, feet dragging, tired, so tired, shaky, can’t aim, can’t see straight, can’t command the others, supposed to command them, supposed to be able to. Worse than hunger, easier to just go hungry. So tired of being hungry... _

Snoke’s attention pulled away from Armitage as the doors to the lab opened without preamble to an indignant “UNHAND ME!”

“Commandant Hux,” Snoke purred.

Brendol Hux looked like he’d been dragged out of the middle of some meeting or another. His uniform was wrinkled and ill-fitting, exacerbated by the way the Praetorian Guard held him by his flabby biceps. His gray eyes filled with dawning horror as he saw his Supreme Leader standing off to one side flanked by twin Guards in red armor, as he saw the shiny latex-clad scientist with her sudden predatory grin, as he saw his own hybrid son laid out naked on a table with his teeth forcibly bared.

“Oh goody,” Dr. Katsuo said, hands clasped in exaggerated glee. “Hold him down and gas him, I need to see the entire human template. Let me see what I get to erase!”

“Now see here!” Brendol shouted as the two armored Guards pulled him down into the lab. It grew worse as Snoke nodded, sending two more to pick the man up as he started screaming.

Droids pulled the second table from storage and prepared Brendol for examination. Years of easy living had left the elder Hux soft around the middle and less able to fight back as he wheezed from exertion. A droid fixed the mask over Brendol’s mouth even as the man screamed his protests. Dr. Katsuo aided the gassing as she grabbed his neck and held his nose closed, forcing him to breathe in the gas mixture that rendered those screams fainter, softer, pleading and plaintive and finally nothing more than a quiet whine. A droid tested the man’s ability to fight back by stabbing him in the fingertips with needles. Satisfied with the lack of response, Dr. Katsuo stepped back and allowed the droids to strip him and strap him down.

Dr. Katsuo inserted the dental speculum and spread the man’s mouth. “Standard human set,” she said. “He’s missing six molars. He’s missing the last four, the so-called ‘wisdom teeth’, and the remaining molars on his lower mandible, right and left. I can’t tell if he lost them to poor dental hygiene or if they were removed due to a lack of space in the lower jaw.” She inhaled through the nose and coughed. “Could be either one.”

She moved on to the general human form. “Same red hair,” she mused. “Same melanin spots, freckles. Armitage is paler, I’ll want to get a sample of his skin before this is over. Melanin might not be the only pigment molecule at work here.”

She tapped the goggles she wore, changing the HUD to display a real time image of her patient’s insides. The same image overtook the holograms on the walls, blowing it up for her to prod, to rotate, to record and notate. “Armitage is not an obligate carnivore, he’s capable of surviving on plant matter,” she mused. “But I expect it would be detrimental to him, physically and mentally. I’d place him as a high percentage mesocarnivore, perhaps even a low percentage hypercarnivore. That… would explain why he’s so thin compared to the father.” She pinched Brendol’s side, pulling at the rolling belly unconstrained by the uniform. “Has the father been taking extra rations?”

“Someone will look into it,” Snoke said dismissively.

Brendol’s mind screamed against the dehumanizing treatment. 

_ Of course I take extra rations. It's my due, my reward for dealing with that monster there, the boy isn’t going to eat it. Why not take it for myself? Am I supposed to waste food, then? It’s the least the boy can do, allow his father to dispose of the evidence of his inhumanity. It doesn’t hinder the boy any, so many good ideas coming out of the little mongrel. Someone has to take credit for it, can’t let those go to waste either. What, is anyone going to believe a creature like that? Over me? I put up with the little monster for twenty three years now, he owes me. He owes me! I left it alive when I should have put it down like the rabid dog it is! _

Snoke felt a smile break over his own deformed face as he listened to the inadvertent confession dripping from this unshielded man like urine puddling the floor. He stepped onto the lab’s main floor, bypassing the still-whimpering human to run his hands through Armitage’s hair. “I don’t need him to be my Grand Admiral Thrawn,” he purred. “I just need him to be my perfect beautiful hound. Make him beautiful for me, Dr. Katsuo. You have my permission.”

Dr. Katsuo smiled with quiet glee as she considered the poor defanged creature before her.

She would give it  **all** back to him. She would make him beautiful as the Supreme Leader commanded.

*****

Armitage Hux curled up on the bunk of his quarters and shivered.

He ached. He hurt all over. Part of that was a side effect of the gas used on him. Most of that pain, however, was not so simple.

He never knew genetic treatments could be so painful and yet, they were. His skin burned as cells replaced themselves. His scalp itched as he knew hairs were falling out and being replaced. His vision was blurred, a blurry he couldn’t blink away no matter how hard he tried. Everything stank, from the smell of boot prints ground into the floor of his quarters to the lubricating oil that kept the mouse droids running to the smell of sweat and human fear of his own bedding.

But the worst pain was his face.

He dragged himself to the fresher to splash water on his face. “Lights,” he called.

The lights stayed dim.

“Lights!” he shouted.

No change. The lights stayed at the preprogrammed 30% level normally befitting of a migraine patient. But he didn’t have a migraine, that wasn’t his problem.

His problem was he could  _ see _ . He could see in near total darkness now, not just the dim light of a shadowed room. What had that doctor done to him? Hadn’t the Supreme Leader said he was only going to regain his teeth? He hadn’t agreed to more than that. Why had his eyesight changed?

He cupped his hands under the running water and drank, lapping at the water with a flat tongue. Finally he sighed and turned the water off then dared to look up at the mirror.

Wide green eyes with bright glowing pupils stared back at him, the whites of his eyes completely gone now. Titanium fangs peeked from behind red lips, the heralds of a full set of restored and sharpened teeth. Pale skin dotted with a few stubborn freckles shone in the wan light, but it was a different paleness than the one he was used to. This was different, wrong, like the red hair. The red was different, red that looked black in the darkness, red that wasn’t the pale orange and yellow he’d inherited from his father.

He looked like his mother.

A chill fell over him as he bared his teeth to see them, as he growled at nothing just to hear the deep rumble, as he licked his flat rough tongue over his own lips. He felt the laughter bubbling up within him, bursting free in a terrible hissing shriek.

He really was beautiful like this.

No one would ever take this from him again.

*****

After a scant few weeks of “medical leave” Captain Armitage Hux found himself welcomed back to work with a promotion, with the whispers behind his back renewed, and with the realization that he was surrounded by prey.

It stank. It actually smelled bad, like stale fear and submissive urine. 

Nowhere else was that smell worse than from his fat human father, the man who would have put a stop to his beautiful transformation. The stench made him want to bite the man’s neck, rip out his throat to let the blood spray. But no more than that, his father wasn’t worth eating.

Eventually he would have that chance. He would watch the lifeblood drain from that man’s fat face. In due time.

Until then his Master had other plans for him.

The Jedi revered a planet called Ilum for its abundant kyber deposits. Supreme Leader Snoke had access to knowledge from the Ancient Sith, knowledge about an old Rakatan device called a Star Forge. The Star Forge itself was gone, long ago destroyed, but the ability to condense an entire star using kyber and turning it into something useful and destructive?

That was something Armitage wanted to try.

**Author's Note:**

> Arkanis as it's portrayed here is based off of my own previous research. I wrote my bachelor's thesis on exoplanetary atmospheres, you think I'm not going to then build a biosphere? That I'm not going to twist humanity's inherent adaptability back on itself to make monsters? All this stems from the single simple fact of canon that the mists and rains on Arkanis are so pervasive that sunlight is a rare occurrence.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Apex Predators](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24452203) by [EmperorsVornskr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmperorsVornskr/pseuds/EmperorsVornskr)




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